The calendar keeps ignoring my requests to stop, and so it turns out today is
another birthday for me. Celebrations are pretty subdued here, however, as we
spent the day in the hospital yesterday saying goodbye to my step-grandma, as
she requested to be taken off all of her life-support after her kidneys finally
gave out. If she hasn't passed yet, she'll go soon, and we are heartbroken. She
was a remarkable woman who lead a magnificent life for 93 years, and she will be
missed... one of the next couple of days I'll write up a bit to justify that
hype. On the brighter side, I'm considering my present this year to be Hudson
the wonder dog, and the way she is hanging in there pretty well for the time
being. There had been indications her kidneys were likewise failing due to her
medications, but they have rebounded and she's doing better at the moment.
Hudson and Grandma Belle are the same age (if you do that dog years math), and
in an odd coincidence, each suffered a bout of congestive heart failure at the
same time, and have spent the past several weeks sharing symptoms and prognoses
in an eerie way, and only just in the past week did their seemingly intertwined
outlooks diverge. Hats off to Belle, Hudson, and all their fellow elders who
have to have the final frontier so bravely, and who have less need to live for
themselves than for the rest of us who struggle so hard to let them go when they
are ready.

*UPDATE TO THE VIDEO ABOVE** Fort Worth police initially said they could not immediately find any record of their officers being involved in the roadblock, but on Tuesday police spokesman Sgt. Kelly Peel said that the department's Traffic Division coordinated with the NHTSA on the use of off-duty officers after the agency asked for help with the survey.

"We are reviewing the actions of all police personnel involved to ensure that FWPD policies and procedures were followed," he said. "We apologize if any of our drivers and citizens were offended or inconvenienced by the NHTSA National Roadside Survey."

Don't be mad at cops, be mad at the NHTSA.

Be mad at the state of society. Our wasteful and ridiculous war on drugs, terror, and whatever else we can think of has slowly gotten people used to a police state that encourages this kind of bullshit.